Novo Nordisk’s popular obesity drug Wegovy helped women with common heart disease lose more weight than men with the same condition, according to an analysis of study data published in a medical journal.
The trials included 1,145 patients and focused on a condition known as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF, in which the muscles of the heart stiffen and draw in less blood.
Data from the two trials, which tested the drug in people with obesity-related heart failure and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, whether they had diabetes or not, were presented Sunday at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
The data showed that the drug produced similar improvements in obesity-related heart failure symptoms, physical limitations and exercise function, regardless of gender.
The prespecified analysis was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“We’re seeing a benefit in both men and women,” Stephen Gough, Novo’s chief medical officer, said in an interview. He added that the trial data supported Wegovy’s potential to provide clinical improvements in patients with heart failure.
Novo’s trials were not designed to evaluate the effects of treatment with Wegovy, known by the chemical name semaglutide, based on biological sex.
About half of the patients enrolled in the trials were women. The analysis showed they had a higher body mass index and more severe heart failure symptoms. Women were also less likely to have an abnormal heart rhythm or coronary heart disease than men.
The data showed that a dose of 2.4 milligrams of semaglutide in patients with obesity-related acute heart failure reduced body weight to a greater extent in women. Women lost an average of 9.6% of their body weight, while men lost about 7.2% of their body weight.
Heart failure benefits were found to be similar in men and women, with both groups improving on average by about 7.5 points on a scoring system ranging from 0 to 100 points.
Other studies have also shown greater weight loss in women than in men with semaglutide, for reasons that are not yet clear, according to the analysis.
According to an editorial published with the study, the “main surprising finding” of the analysis is that greater weight loss in women did not lead to equally significant improvements in heart failure symptoms.
Further research is needed to identify the reasons for this discrepancy, the researchers said.
Data show that fewer serious adverse reactions were reported in patients who received semaglutide, compared to those who received a placebo.
HFpEF accounts for about half of heart failure cases, with symptoms including shortness of breath and swelling of the extremities. Previous studies have shown that this condition mainly affects overweight people and is particularly common in women. (Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen and Bhanvi Satija in Bangalore; Editing by Caroline Humer and Pooja Desai)
